In the dg postbag (because, even in this online age, some mail still arrives via my letterbox)
• The tube network was particularly unreliable last week, with severe delays and track suspensions occurring almost hourly. On Monday my journey into work ended up taking more than 15 minutes longer than normal, so I decided to apply for a ticket refund under TfL's Customer Charter. It's very easy to do online if you have an Oyster card. Hey presto, my refund arrived by post yesterday. And now, hurrah, I have a £3 voucher (the cost of a single journey) which I can exchange for a train ticket at any time during the next 13 months. Which sounds very equitable. Except, erm, why would I want this? All of my daily journeys are already paid for on my Oyster season ticket. Even if I choose to journey outside my allocated zones, the maximum extension fare is only £1.50. What good is £3 towards a paper ticket I shall never use? Why haven't I been given £3 of pre-pay instead which I could actually use? Maybe I'll go out later and donate my free ticket to a passing bag-lady.
• My local council have sent me a leaflet about recycling. They didn't just send somebody round to stick it through my letterbox, oh no, they stuck it in an envelope and posted it to me. The leaflet is to tell me that my new recycling collection day is Tuesday, which is news to me because my address has no recycling arrangements whatsoever. Tower Hamlets council have one of the worst records in the country for recycling, which probably explains why I don't have either a green recycling box or one of their pink recycling bags. All I now have is a leaflet and an envelope, both of which need recycling, and nowhere to put them.
• After I complained about my endowment mortgage last month, I've since complained again about the financial settlement I was offered in redress. Not content with screwing me over once with an incorrectly-sold life assurance policy, the devious corporate leeches then subtracted future life assurance payments when calculating my compensation. They've now apologised for this 'oversight' and upped their original offer. It's only an increase of £42, which is insignificant compared to the size of my mortgage, but I guess every little counts.
